A member of Vindicat branded first-year students. The perpetrator has been banned for life by the association. But who decides these punishments? Rector Wibe Kaak of Vindicat explains.
The ski trip to Risoul, France, in March is still fresh in our memories, and now Vindicat is back in the (national) spotlight: during a weekend trip, ten first-year students were branded by an older student.
The trip was organised by society Tyr, outside the official association. Vindicat acted swiftly: the perpetrator received a lifetime suspension, and the society was formally disbanded. The board was praised for its prompt and decisive action by, among others, the University of Groningen and the mayor of Groningen.
But how does Vindicat determine what punishment to hand out? And is it stricter than before?
‘It’s true that we now also look at how members behave outside the association’, says rector Wibe Kaak. ‘We don’t monitor all two thousand members at every party they organise or every trip they take. But if they break the behavioural rules we’ve agreed on within the association and damage Vindicat’s reputation, there will be consequences.’
This change, he says, has been underway for several years. ‘We’ve been working on this for nearly ten years now, ever since we publicly acknowledged that the culture needs to change.’ The fact that the board now feels compelled to issue sanctions for incidents outside the association is part of that change.
Statutes
The board doesn’t decide punishments on its own. ‘That used to happen in the past’, Kaak says. ‘But now we have statutes, which have been discussed in a general assembly.’ If someone breaks a specific behavioural rule, there is a predetermined punishment for it. ‘For example, a suspension ranging from x to y number of months.’
The association has its own ‘judicial body’ that determines the punishment for each incident. ‘It consists of fifteen to twenty law students. For each incident, three students with no personal ties to those involved are selected. They then review the case.’
Internal investigation
The board provides them with a report of the incident along with a proposed punishment. ‘That proposed penalty is based on the statutes’, says Kaak. ‘But the judicial body conducts its own investigation first. They talk to those involved, sometimes to extra witnesses, and often they want to hear again from us as the board about what happened.’
The three students then assess the proposed punishment. ‘They also compare it to past punishments’, Kaak says. Sometimes the judicial body finds the proposal too lenient—maybe because a few years ago a similar case resulted in a harsher penalty—and they increase the punishment. ‘It also happens the other way around—they might tell us we’re being too harsh.’
Kaak emphasises that the ‘internal legal system’ is only part of the process. ‘This is how we handle it internally, but we also always report incidents externally.’
Police involvement
The board has a contact person at the police. ‘I’m in regular contact with them. We also have agreements about which incidents must or don’t need to be reported to the police.’
If the incident involves a criminal offense, it is always reported. But a bar fight at the club house on the Grote Markt? Maybe not. ‘The police don’t show up for every bar fight in the Poelestraat either—they don’t have the capacity. And they don’t do that for us either.’
All incidents are also reported to the University of Groningen and the municipality. ‘We report everything that happens within the association. Even if, say, someone falls down the stairs, hits their head, and needs to go to the hospital. Of course, that’s not something we can prevent, but we still report it’, says the rector.